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💀 Registration is open for Cosmic Collage! ALL SOULS 💀

This is my last offering for 2023. Also, the last time I offer a cosmic collage workshop! I hope you can join for this final spooky edition!

At this time of year, the veil between the realms is thin.... and magical. How do you connect to what is unseen? Can you open to what is not rational? Come explore sacred thresholds through meditation, contemplation and creativity. On Zoom (and recorded) :: Sunday 11/5 :: 1–3:30pm ET :: $23. 🌟 REGISTER HERE🌟

Hi friends,

Wow. This eclipse season ain’t. here. to. play. 😬

How are you feeling? Can you pause? Right now. Take a deep breath. And another. Feel the earth under you? What else is supporting you?

I have long been exploring how it feels not to bypass what’s happening around me (near or far) while simultaneously not becoming flooded by the painful realities of our world. Maybe that’s what it means to be African.

And, in this moment, I am being extra careful about what I take in from all media – especially social. I know what I am like when my nervous system is not regulated. It’s not good for me (or those around me). There is a LOT of dysregulated, agitated energy right now.

I really hope you’re taking good care of yourselves. I am returning to practices that center and ground me. I am doubling down on making attunement to my own peace the primary aspiration of my practices. I am reminding myself that peace is a process not a destination. I am honoring that peace is not the absence of conflict or difficult emotions, peace is a continual dedication to love.

A simple mantra came through in a plant medicine ceremony I attended a few weekends ago. Listen. Stay in your heart. I’ve been saying it to myself repeatedly since. Listen. Stay in your heart. Listen. Stay in your heart. Listen. Stay in your heart. It feels like an aspiration of tenderness and care, of mindfulness and loving kindness. An aspiration of peace.

Listen — offer presence. Stay in your heart — meet this with love.

This is a forever practice for me. Over the years, I have definitely deepened my capacities for presence and love. And, I do forget. I do get flooded. I do flail. Then, I start over. Case in point…

Last weekend, my cousin was here from Addis Ababa. Ayu is technically my second cousin (her mom and my mom were cousins — that’s simply “cousin” in our culture). So much diaspora-ing has happened in our family and so many of us died young that I don’t have many biological kin left to whom I feel a connection. I’ve grown close to Ayu since we met, when I was in my early twenties and she in her late-thirties. I say met, even though really we re-met. While she was in high school, Ayu lived with my immediate family in Ethiopia. When we migrated to the U.S. in 1973 (right before the coup in 1974), we left her behind. I was not yet 3 years old, so I don’t remember this (or anything from that time). We didn’t see Ayu again until after the overthrow of the military dictatorship in 1991.

Ayu’s been the family member most engaged with me every visit since: taking me around Addis, coming on group trips to Gonder and Lalibela, spending nights at my mom’s (the same house she lived in as a teen), staying up late into the night sharing stories about what many consider to be the golden days of the city — which apparently included lots of afros and horns (as well as fully believing in a hagiographic-like version of a unified, egalitarian country – that LOL never actually existed).

Seven years ago this month, Ayu is the one who answered the phone when I called my mom on my birthday and told me she had had a stroke. She was the one who step-by-step helped me navigate the bananas bureaucracy of getting my mom from Addis to London (a truly wild week filled with both maddening frustrations and magical synchronicities!). She was the one person who dove deep with me into the bribe-fueled process to retain my mom’s house after her death (pro tip: if someone says We’re out of ink… they want cash). Ayu has been tracking all the memorial anniversaries in the church back home, communicating to the priests for prayers for my mom on her death anniversary, and coordinating acts of service in her honor. Coincidentally (or, auspiciously), seven years is the end of yearly acknowledgements of someone’s death according to the Ethiopian Orthodox tradition.

Ayu was last here in 2019. That time, she stayed with me for almost three weeks. Last week, due to visa issues, she was here for three nights. It was a whirlwind weekend. I felt pressure to make sure we saw enough, tasted enough, experienced enough (a trip upstate, auntie visits, her first Broadway show, Orthodox church service in Newark…). She arrived at my apartment last Friday. Within twenty minutes of her arrival, I (auspiciously) received a text form my “auntie” Salem (family defies biology to us). She had been editing footage for her documentary about Awra Amba and came across an audio clip of an accidental recording of my mom speaking to one of the community leaders when they visited together. It’s an inconsequential, brief conversation in Amharic – just over one minute. It’s the first time I’ve heard my mom’s voice in seven years. Ayu and I listened to it, stunned and crying.

Saturday happened to be Family Day at Camphill Village, where my sister, Finot, lives in an integrated community for intellectually disabled adults. Ayu had visited the village before, but Family Day is one of only two times a year where visitors have an opportunity to witness the entire community together in celebration. There are presentations of various activities, as well as loving tributes to those who have lived there for 50 or 60 years. It’s a festive and moving experience, and (yes, auspiciously) Ayu’s visit just happened to coincide. And, on top of everything, for the first time, Finot was (auspiciously) Master of Ceremonies for the event (you’re getting that I do not believe in coincidences).

All of us were excited, especially Finot. It was a special day for her, for all of us. The event was beautiful. The presentations were great. We were ready for lunch. So far so good. And then, I had a very strong reaction to something Finot did. On came the flooding and flailing. Gone was my attunement and peace. It was nothing tragic or drastic, but it went on for longer than I’d like to admit (many, many minutes). I most definitely was not well regulated.

What brought on my dysregulation that day was something minor. It was also a mirror. To something old. This happens to me a lot with Finot. I’m sure it’s connected to my childhood patterns. She’s four years older than me, but I was her caregiver from a very young age. I had to look out for her, protect her from teasing and bullying, keep her safe, help her navigate the world. When I was really little, I think I envied the extra care and attention she received because of her disability. As I got older, I’m sure there’s a part of me that resented the responsibility. Of course there’s a lot of affection between us too. Finot is a generous, joyous, loving person, and I know she loves me immensely. I love her too. I’m the only biological family she has nearby. I’ll be here for her as long as I am able. And, now, she has an entire village of family to look out for her. Me too, I have my “village” — including Ayu.

Listen. Stay in my heart.

The moment at Family Day passed. We had a wonderful weekend. I was probably activated by so many things: Ayu’s visit, the audio message, getting my latest course launched, the coming anniversary of my mom’s death, Finot’s big day, all the busyness of the past few weeks, the state of the world, this eclipse,

the retreat I’m teaching this weekend, the STATE OF THE WORLD…

May we all remember to pause and meet ourselves with love.

With tenderness and care,

Sebene

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